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Book summary and reviews of Fallen Skies by Philippa Gregory

Fallen Skies by Philippa Gregory

Fallen Skies

A Novel

by Philippa Gregory

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  • Published:
  • Dec 2008
    528 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Paperback original.

Fallen Skies takes readers to post-World War I England in a suspenseful story about the marriage of a wealthy war hero and an aspiring singer he barely knows. Lily Valance is determined to forget the horrors of the war by throwing herself into the decadent pleasures of the 1920s and pursuing her career as a music hall singer. When she meets Captain Stephen Winters, a decorated veteran, she's immediately drawn to his wealth and status. And Stephen, burdened by his guilt over surviving the Flanders battlefields where so many soldiers perished, sees the possibility of forgetting his anguish in Lily, but his family does not approve.

Lily marries Stephen, only to discover that his family's façade of respectability conceals a terrifying combination of repression, jealousy and violence. When Stephen's terrors merge dangerously close with reality, the truth of what took place in the mud and darkness brings him and all who love him to a terrible reckoning.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[A]ttempts to give equal time to both halves of its unhappy couple with mixed results; the domestic misery and foiled longings will be familiar to fans of Gregory's Boleyn work, but even if this is narrower in scope, it still has plenty of power." - Publishers Weekly.

This information about Fallen Skies was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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challis

Lots of Hold Your Breath Moments!!!
This is a MUST read!! How can you go wrong with a Philippa Gregory “page-turner” I had to write this review to let readers know that Philippa Gregory has brought her storytelling skills to another amazing level. I love her stories about the Tudors, but there's only so much one can write. I was happily surprised to see that Gregory developed rich characters and a riveting storyline in this book as well - in keeping with the WWI era that had me screaming, and clutching the book as my eyes flew across the pages and gasp for breath and cry out in agony and feel every emotion come to the surface only to realize I just had to calm down, it is only a book, If you're looking for more Philippa Gregory but a different story, I believe you will find it in Fallen Skies. BRAVO !!

mary c

Lots of Hold Your Breath Moments!
This is a MUST read!! How can you go wrong with a Philippa Gregory “page-turner” I had to write this review to let readers know that Philippa Gregory has brought her storytelling skills to another amazing level. I love her stories about the Tudors, but there's only so much one can write. I was happily surprised to see that Gregory developed rich characters and a riveting storyline in this book as well - in keeping with the WWI era that had me screaming, and clutching the book as my eyes flew across the pages and gasp for breath and cry out in agony and feel every emotion come to the surface only to realize I just had to calm down, it is only a book, If you're looking for more Philippa Gregory but a different story, I believe you will find it in Fallen Skies. BRAVO !!

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Author Information

Philippa Gregory Author Biography

Philippa Gregory was an established historian and writer when she discovered her interest in the Tudor period and wrote the novel The Other Boleyn Girl, which was made into a TV drama, and a major film. Now, six novels later, she is looking at the family that preceded the Tudors: the magnificent Plantaganets, a family of complex rivalries, loves, and hatreds. She lives with her family on a small farm in Yorkshire where she keeps horses, hens and ducks.

Her other great interest is the charity that she founded nearly twenty years ago: Gardens for The Gambia. She has raised funds and paid for 140 wells in the primary schools of this very dry and poor African country, and thousands of school children have been able to learn market gardening in the school gardens watered by the wells. The ...

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